Johnny Walker out in the first round. It is crazy to think that, at one point in time, Walker was slated to be the biggest threat to Jon Jones and the light heavyweight crown. Unfortunately, those days are long gone, and he has since suffered four fairly brutal knockouts. He is currently on a two-fight losing streak, both by way of knockout. On the other hand, Zhang is flying high and coming off a one-sided beatdown of Anthony Smith that resulted in a first-round finish. Despite Walker’s current status in the 205-pound division, he is still the best talent that Mingyang will face since joining the UFC. Walker is brutally powerful and extremely athletic. He has certainly shown signs of being a formidable contender at light heavyweight. However, it is hard to imagine a world where his chin is anything close to what it used to be after suffering back-to-back devastating knockouts. Zhang will be able to go chin hunting and eventually finish Walker by strikes in the back half of the first round.

To piggyback off of my colleague’s assessment of Johnny Walker, I was definitely in the camp that thought he would be the one to have the best shot of capturing the light heavyweight crown. However, after his third win in the UFC – a 38-second knockout of Misha Cirkunov – he dislocated his shoulder doing the worm in the Octagon while celebrating. IT all went downhill from there. He went 1-4 in his next five fights, seemed to be back in the saddle with three wins in a row, and then went 0-2-1 to get him where he is now, facing the Chinese buzzsaw Zhang Mingyang.

Zhang has not seen a second round since his fourth career loss in May 2018. Since then, he has gone 14-2 with all of those fights ending in the first round, and all but three ending in knockout. Not only is he on a 12-fight, first-round winning streak, but the last nine were by knockout, including his first three UFC fights. However, there is a single X-factor that could affect this battle, and that is the size difference. Walker is coming in with a three-inch height advantage and a whopping seven-inch reach advantage. His rangy style could keep him out of Zhang’s’ danger zone, and, at least, make it into the second round. However, I do agree with my colleague that the hard-hitting Sanda stylist, who is six years younger, will be able to put Walker’s lights out before the final bell.